It was scored for baritone solo voices, a chorus of tenors and baritones (in two parts each), and orchestra. The complete incidental music is lengthy (about 1 hour and 45 minutes) and is not often performed.

Vaughan Williams later arranged parts of the music into an orchestral suite (about 26 minutes), in five parts:

Overture

Entr'acte

March Past of the Kitchen Utensils

Entr'acte

Ballet and Final Tableau.

The Overture is quite concise (about 10 minutes) and is a popular independent concert piece today. The main theme is pentatonic. There are close to 30 recordings now available of the overture. The March Past of the Kitchen Utensils is also quite charming and sometimes separately performed. The entire orchestral suite is also sometimes performed and recorded.

The year before he wrote The Wasps, Vaughan Williams spent three months in Paris studying orchestration with Maurice Ravel. Although The Wasps may reflect something of Ravel, it is quintessential Vaughan Williams. Except for the opening buzzing, the piece has little to do with wasps or with ancient Greece.